


Lost in Thought (And A Self-Inflicted War)

by AwkwardSquiid



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: AND MORE VILLAINS, Angst, But a little bit more fluff this time, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, IMMA BACK, Race To The Edge, Spoilers, Trauma, Villains, and again more than canon-typical, no seriously I'm trash for villains, there are spoilers for Season 6 you maniacs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 10:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13785687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardSquiid/pseuds/AwkwardSquiid
Summary: WARNING: There are spoilers here for Race to the Edge Season 6.Krogan has taken over the Dragon Flyers and he and Johann are on a single-minded path of destruction to find the King of Dragons. However, they sometimes forget they have the vector of the Rider-Hunter war chilling right in the middle of their camps and listening in on all their plans.Viggo's own war is getting old, and something is going to have to change soon.





	Lost in Thought (And A Self-Inflicted War)

**Author's Note:**

> I told you- I wouldn't be able to stay away for long!!  
> As a life update, I watched Season 6, I loved it, I sobbed. Yep, basically the season routine. Only difference? It's over now, so ALL I have left to do in life is write fanfiction. And guess what the diddly frick I did?  
> Wrote fanfiction.  
> This is the follow-up, Season 6 addition to my previous work A Matter of Perspective, and this is also Viggo-centric but, naturally, S6-y. So there are, of course, spoilers and a lot of me crying about Triple Cross.  
> Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viggo is learning how to cope with his two obsessive allies, and in the meantime spends a few minutes annoying Krogan because he's not sure he has anything better to do.  
> Krogan doesn't like Viggo's coin tricks. But Viggo likes Viggo's coin tricks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, I really liked the little vanishing trick Viggo did at the beginning of In Plain Sight. And as a coin magician/just general street magician myself in the past years, I took the liberty of turning it into a short.  
> Because I can.

Sleight of hand was all about perspective.

There was always tricks up someone’s sleeve, always different ways to make things appear differently than they actually were to the onlooking audience. It could be a simple hand motion, it could be the placement of the item, it could be anything. The art of the sleight of hand was something Viggo Grimborn always stacked his plans on. Not the physical form, perhaps, but the mental sleight of hand- or as he liked to call it, sleight of mind. It didn’t necessarily require altering of things, but making it _seem_ like you alter things, from the point of view of the audience.

That was what it was about. That was why Viggo had first taken to the art of sleight of hand, before he had learned how to manipulate things mentally, instead physically. As a boy, he had dedicated much of his time to learn elaborate ways to make it seem like he could make coins disappear. He could make it seem like a deck of Viking cards could transform into all the same type of card. He’d invented a box that could make items disappear, with nothing but a simple lever system built inside.

That alone had been something that had been enough of a telltale sign to his grandfather that his grandson had promise for being the future chief of the Hunters. And one thing led to another, for Viggo’s “magic” tricks had gotten him noticed by his grandfather, then much later the chief of the Dragon Hunters and now…

Here.

All of that stripped away, a distant memory fading on the horizon as Viggo was faced with a new and considerably less enjoyable life. He was currently stretched out across one of the chairs sitting around the cluttered central table of the tent, a lazily flickering lantern illuminating countless papers and maps, and a stray Dragon Eye, of which Viggo was resisting a strong urge to examine it once more.

It didn’t feel like home, not like it had used to. Viggo had spent hours in this tent alone, planning, talking to Ryker, staring at nothing in particular as he reviewed plan after plan in his head. But now the walls of it had a pressing weight on his back, rather than the comforting warmth they had once had. The one place he had always known he was safe was now the place where he was least safe. For all he knew, Krogan was camouflaged in the shadows, holding a glinting knife, ready to drive-

The sound of shuffling feet and a partition being moved made Viggo jump to alertness in an instant. The chairs he was stretched out on rocked, and he tried to look dignified and totally-not-falling-off as Johann and Krogan pushed through the tent door, still arguing, though in a lower tone. They’d been at this for at least two hours now, bickering over where to start searching for the lenses. Krogan wanted to start tearing the place apart, whereas Johann thought they should go at it systematically.

Viggo rolled his eyes and sank back into his chairs. They weren’t worth his time.

But, for once, it seemed they thought _he_ was worth _their_ time.

Krogan was cut off in a very loud remark followed by a swear as Johann abruptly shushed him. “Krogan, why don’t we ask _Viggo_ about it?”

Krogan scoffed, as if the idea was ridiculous. But Viggo perked up, and Johann turned to look at him. The ex-Hunter chieftain thought he caught a glimpse of _something_ across Johann’s face when his blue-gray eyes met Viggo’s brown and damaged one, some emotion, perhaps, but he couldn’t be sure, for instantly again Johann maintained his typical high-and-mighty facade.

“Johann’s right,” Viggo said immediately, and Krogan’s brows arched, as if he had assumed Viggo hadn’t been listening to them. (Joke was on him. Viggo listened to every word they breathed, even if they didn’t know.) “The only way to go at it is systematically and precisely. Survey all the islands, find the possible ones, narrow it down. If you just attack them sporadically, you’ll get nowhere.”

Krogan let out a soft growl, but Johann looked pleased. “There, you see?” the trader said, in a somewhat challenging manner, turning to face Krogan. “Even Grimborn disapproves of your...barbaric way of doing things.” Johann’s lips curled at the word ‘barbaric’, as if it left a poor taste in his mouth.

 _And you’re_ less _barbaric than him?_ Viggo thought pointedly, still slouched over in the chair, though now examining Johann with a bit more attentiveness. Johann, of course, had been paying Viggo for assistance several months back, before the incident. Now it seemed he was just with Krogan, though his loyalties had become...muddled. Krogan was working for his “mysterious northern buyer”, and Johann was simply in it for the King of Dragons, but Viggo…? He didn’t really know what he was fighting for, or really even what he was doing here. But something had to change. He couldn’t just eye Krogan’s knife forever, waiting for it to be plunged into his heart and for it all to be done and over with.

Quickly shoving that depressing train of thought out of his mind, he again focused in on Krogan, who had been flustered by Johann’s sharp remark and was recoiling with balled fists. Viggo yawned, as if the whole thing was a soap opera, and he simply couldn’t be bothered with staying awake much longer.

“I’ve made a decision, Krogan, and that is _final,_ ” Johann spat, glaring intensely at Krogan, who glared right back for a span of two seconds, before his shoulders sagged and he gave a begrudging sigh, accompanied by a forced nod of agreement. Johann looked satisfied, and Viggo just watched, his eyes now open, at last genuinely shocked by his two ally’s antics. The strength of Johann’s last words was surprising, and no one, not even _Ryker_ had he still been alive at the time, would be able to shut Krogan down like that.

In a flourish, Johann brushed past Krogan and exited the tent.

Krogan hesitated, looking back after him, before looking back at Viggo, who narrowed his eyes back at him, a wordless challenge to stay. Krogan curled his lip at him in a silent snarl and plopped down in the chair across from him, accepting that challenge. _I’m more afraid of him than I am of you,_ he seemed to be saying as he met Viggo’s odd-colored eyes.

 _Coward,_ Viggo sent back.

And then, as if nothing had happened, Viggo resituated himself across the chairs, leaning across the table and pushing his way through the maps, picking up the Dragon Eye lens that sat under several papers and began to run his finger along it. Krogan let out a long-winded sigh, as if he was prepared to deal with a long conversation with Viggo about pieces in the game and allies and using allies wisely.

Instead, Viggo said nothing, sitting straighter, so he wasn’t completely lazed across the chairs. Making sure Krogan was focused on his hands, checking from the peripheral vision of his good eye, Viggo began spinning the lens from one hand to another, palming it several times, before flipping it up and snatching it expertely out of the air. Krogan, having nothing better to do, watched him curiously.

Aware now that he had an audience, Viggo flipped the coin into his left hand, pausing for a moment. He flicked his wrist expertly, just enough to shift Krogan’s perspective to make it look like it had been passed back...

And then, he opened his other hand, revealing it to be empty. He had known Krogan watched him do a similar trick when he and Johann had discovered they didn’t have a full map to the King of Dragons, but this was a far more elaborate trick.

Viggo opened his other hand. Also empty.

There was a slight pause as Krogan started at his empty palms, that Viggo was examining quite innocently, as if he too had no idea where the lens had gone. “Is this your subtle way of thievery?” Krogan questioned, and to Viggo’s surprise, there was a touch of amusement, though masked by annoyance.

“Hardly,” Viggo said. He snapped his fingers, and out of the view of Krogan’s eyes, Viggo swiftly tossed the lens up into his hand underneath his table and opened the hand he had snapped with, revealing the lens to be returned. “If I wanted to steal the lens I would have done so long ago.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Krogan snarked. Viggo just gave him an easygoing, devil-may-care smile.

Krogan was just as easy to sway with sleight of hand as he was sleight of mind, it seemed. He used to be more easily manipulated, when Krogan had just been their “special guest”. But now, in full power, he was harder to control. But Viggo was past the point of caring about that. Johann had him under his control, Viggo needn’t worry about him just yet.

“Krogan, the art of the sleight of hand is all about perspective.” Viggo whisked the Dragon Eye lens between two fingers, flicking his hand towards him, and vanishing it as his palm flicked back to face Krogan once more. “It’s much like Maces and Talons. You use visual bluffs to convince your opponent of something they are not actually seeing.”

Krogan watched as Viggo smoothly made the lens reappear, continuing. “The greatest lie a man can be convinced of, is the one he tells himself. There is no more potent form of total persuasion. You see, once the man has convinced himself, the only one who can persuade him otherwise is, naturally, the one who did the persuasion.”

Krogan blinked, as if taking a moment to inhale all that information. Though he seemed mostly focused on Viggo’s hands, which were now moving rapidly, spinning the lens back and forth with flowing, practiced movements, as it vanished in and out of sight.

“You really do spend far too much time alone with your thoughts in the dark, don’t you?” Krogan mused at last, in some sort of response. Viggo just laughed. It was a harsh, forced laugh, as if he found his words merely ironic, and the farthest from amusing they could be.

“Oh, perhaps once, yes. But now I find I’m spending far too much time _away_ from this place, what with these developments.” He finally paused in his vanishing tricks, pinching the lens between a thumb and forefinger and examining it seriously, as if deep in thought.

“You signed on for this,” Krogan reminded him. “This was all you.”

Viggo paused, as if actually considering his words.

“Oh, yes... I suppose it was.” Viggo’s voice went unusually low, scraping a hoarse growl. His voice had gotten a bit rougher, especially when he touched those deeper, more threatening ranges, not nearly as smooth as he had once been. He naturally assumed it had been the fumes of the volcano; that gods-blasted volcano, the source of all his suffering in the previous months.

Viggo stared at the lens, getting lost in a deep, long daze, as if considering something very profound. Finally, he shook himself, reawakening himself from his trance. Slowly, slowly, he flicked the Dragon Eye lens out of view and paused for a long moment.

Krogan began to get up. “I should go find Johann. He’d better have cooled down by-”

“Wait.”

Viggo had one last trick.

With a beautiful twist of his hand and a flick of the wrist, not one, but _two_ Dragon Eye lenses were gently set down on the table by Viggo’s left hand. Krogan started in wonder at them, now two, duplicated by some miraculous act of Loki.

“Take it,” Viggo said, roughly. “I have no use for it.”

His final, favorite trick, the one that polished off any act: duplication.

Krogan glanced warily at Viggo, before reaching out and scooping up the two lenses. Then, with one final, hesitant glance towards the dark-haired, half-blind man, Krogan slunk out the back of the tent.

Viggo stared at his hands in silence, lost again in thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, and that second lens Viggo just so happened to have? It was Ryker’s. Blame it on my mini-headcanon that, like Dagur and Heather, they were given lenses as kids, too. I’m sure you can guess what this implies Viggo was thinking about.  
> Sorry not sorry.


End file.
